Well my first time at Motorama. The Farm Complex is a bit like Cirque de Soliel meets Kansas with a touch of Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome thrown in. I was well prepared with my toolbox, laptop, and Amazon On Demand video library of Top Chef Seasons 1-9...I thought, until we realized our table was... [More]

We've pretty much spent the weekend on the couch, knocking back Alka Seltzer Cold and Flu, suffering from the "Motorama Plague" or "Motorama Flu", as it's diversely known. Heck, we haven't even unloaded the 'BotMobile yet, but sitting here with not much to do except avoid infecting other people has meant idle hands - hands which decided to do some CAD work! [More]

A quick before/after photo comparison of the Motorama 2012 fleet, and some notes as to what we're planning on doing with the 'bots, using lessons learned from the event. [More]

Yesterday was a fun day! We had nine matches, and still have two 'bots in the running as of this morning, although one of them needs a fair bit of work done, so we're up early for breakfast and coffee, and headed to the Farm Show Complex at 8am, to try and beat the mess we encountered yesterday morning. Fortunately we found a decent parking spot this time, and headed in to fix up the beetleweight and check on the hobbyweight. [More]

After a restful night, today's the day the Big 'Bots fight (and hopefully win!) so it's time to throw on some clothes, find some coffee, and get the rest of the fleet through safety inspections. [More]

The last two days we were on the road ... it was a relatively dull drive, which is a good thing: no speeding tickets and decent time, despite the near-constant rain through Arkansas and Tennessee we made good time to the hotel the first night and the Competition Hotel Thursday night. A gin and tonic or two the night before, and we were up and ready for Robot fights this morning. [More]

We'll come back to today's build report - honest - but right now we have to clean up, pack some clothes, and get on the road in the next hour and a half, so we'll keep this short and sweet: We're ready for Motorama 2012! [More]

This is it: our last day before we have to pack up the Botmobile and hit the road to Motorama. We have two unfinished 'bots: the featherweight Formidable Fustigator 2.0 and the sportsman Palindrome30. The featherweight is closest to being completed, so that's where we'll concentrate today. [More]

Two build days and two unfinished 'bots. Not much introduction to this one, just get out there and get some construction accomplished. [More]

We only have three days of build time left before hitting the road for Motorama 2012, and we still have two unfinished 'bots. Today we decided to concentrate on the one that has the most work to be done: Palindrome30, our Sportsman-class thirty pounder, and see how far along we could get. [More]

Time's ticking away, and we still have two 'bots under construction. We had some errands to run this morning, but at lunch time we bundled up warm and headed out to the Build Space. There are a number of key things to be done, and with a McMaster delivery last night we ought to be able to make some decent progress. [More]

The last couple of nights we've been dealing with problems at the office, so no build time, but those issues are [hopefully] resolved, and we had time tonight to get a little building done, so it's time to wire up the featherweight. [More]

Flush with our recent successes in finishing up 'bots we're left with two big 'uns to wrap up, so we need to get to it! Tonight we're hoping to finish the frame for the featherweight, so we have some drilling and milling to get on with. [More]

With such a small number of things left to do we took some time after dinner tonight to wrap up Malicious Mule and get it ready for sompetition. We needed to trim some weight and bind the receiver to the radio, then see how it behaved. [More]

This time in two weeks it'll all be over at Motorama 2012 and the arena is likely almost disassembled and stowed in the Benson Trailer, but for now we still have work to do in preparation for the event. [More]

With the beetle finished this morning, our list of things to do is diminishing quite nicely! But by far the longest To Do lists are for the the two biggest 'bots, and as there's only this weekend and next weekend left to go, we need to buckle down and make some progress! [More]

Last night we almost had another 'bot finished, but the weapon wouldn't spin up, so the first order of business this morning is figuring out why! [More]

A small yet expensive box of parts from SDP/SI showed up this evening, so that meant we had what we needed to finish our second beetleweight. We'd ordered a selection of MXL timing belts for the weapon, as we weren't 100% sure what size we needed, so let's see if we can wrap this 'bot up! [More]

Having dashed out at lunchtime to Grainger to swipe some #2-56 x 3/8" screws we were hoping to get the smallest 'bot in the fleet for Motorama 2012 finished up tonight. There's not much to do,so we buckled down and set to it. [More]

This time in two weeks we'll be on the road to Nashville, on the way to Motorama 2012! Which is exciting, but we still have work to do - the plan is to finish the fairyweight and a beetleweight by the weekend, and then spend the weekend working on the two biggest
'bots. [More]